The Reluctant Stowaway (LiS episode)
This is the beginning. This is the day. You are watching the unfolding of one of history's great adventures - man's colonization of space - beyond the stars... Summary On October 16, 1997, the Robinson family launches into deep space to colonize a planet around the star Alpha Centauri. The Robinsons have been selected because of their mixture of intelligence, stability and pioneer resourcefulness. The Robinsons are: Professor John Robinson, Doctor Maureen Robinson, their children Judy, Penny and Will. Also, with them, is the pilot, Major Donald West. Also among them is the latest in cybernetic designs… a model B-9 Environmental Control robot. Unknown to the Robinsons or Alpha Control, one of the team members, Colonel (Dr.) Zachary Smith, is in reality an operative for a terroristic entity called Aeolus 14 Umbra. He has been planted there to sabotage the Jupiter 2. Several hours before the launch, Smith sneaks aboard and programs the robot to activate at launch plus eight hours and destroy several key systems of the spacecraft, including life support, propulsion and guidance. Smith is caught on board by a guard, but catches the guard unaware with a sharp blow to the neck; the guard is dead, and Smith shoves him through a temporarily-open disposal hatch, where the guard's body lands in a dumpster. Smith leaves the ship. Minutes before launch, Smith boards with the Robinson family, and proceeds below to check on the Robot, seeing a technician working on it again, and then turning it off and stowing the power pack. After the tech advises him to hurry and climbs to the upper deck, Smith quickly sets to work (while the crew is entering their freezing tubes for their long sleep) to make sure the sabotage program is in effect, attaches the power pack, then is about to climb up when he remembers to activate the robot ("Robot Power On"), and thus is too late as the hatches close in front of him. Smith straps in below and the ship launches. Once well out of the Earth's atmosphere, he flips the Robot Power switch to in between off and on and then climbs to the upper deck; the robot leaves the pedestal to flip the switch to "on" - to avoid the damage an "incompleted circuit" would cause. Smith does not know the robot is back on. Smith tries the radio and shorts out the panel, then the ship veers into a meteor field - Smith hears the incoming radio discussing an extra 200 pounds of weight aboard. He fires a laser at Don's freezing tube and it opens. Don tumbles out, Smith revives him, and Don steers the ship out of the meteor field, then awakens the family at Smith's objection. Maureen reacts badly to reanimation, and Smith attends to her. As they discuss what to do (return to Earth or proceed - Don warns they are way off course), and Don notes it is nearly eight hours from lift-off, Smith notices the robot power is on, and goes to the lower deck and tries prying the power pack off. He trips over a corner, and just then, Don turns off the artificial gravity to repair a piece of equipment. As the gravity comes back on, Smith lands unceremoniously on the deck, and hurries to finally remove the power pack, just as it turns to precisely eight hours, but Will has come down and sees Smith doing the act. Smith contrives that Will has a virus on his tongue and quarantines him, then goes updeck to tell John and Maureen that they must return to Earth to deal with Will's virus. Curious, Will reattaches the power pack, and the robot begins the rampage of destruction. Although Smith is hollering "abort" at the robot, nobody seems to pick up on that later, and only through the combined efforts of John, Don and Smith is the robot stopped. However, the damage to guidance caused the ship to go into hyperdrive, and it flies off into the unknown, rapidly leaving tracking range by controllers on the Moon. The flight director notifies the president of the nation. The Jupiter 2 wanders through space, as Don tries to ascertain their location, and he and John are sure the inertial guidance antenna, located on the hull over the upper deck, is damaged. Don feels he should do the EVA (NASA parlance for space walk) as he is qualified, but John says Don's place is with the ship; John goes out to fix it, but his relative inexperience with zero G has him stumbling and running into the ship, and then his line breaks. Maureen goes out to shoot a line, but it misses John. Background Information * Except possibly the shot of Jupiter approaching Priplanus (and a revised appearance), and part of the opening scenes at Alpha Control, none of the original pilot's footage appears in this episode. * Will's and Smith's actions come under scrutiny a year later when the Robinsons are indicted for assorted offenses and put on trial. * This episode's musical score is unusual in that little of it was repeated in later episodes. Aside from the famous 'Family Theme', 'Frontal Robotomy' and the moody 'Derelict Title' which plays over the last shots of Alpha Control, the other parts of the score were dropped completely. (Occasional excerpts of 'The Treatment/Swallowed' and 'Rescued from Space' are the only others to appear). For Lost in Space this is an anomaly given that almost all the show's music was repeated continuously throughout the three seasons. * This episode contains a blooper: when the Bubble Creatures are chasing the Robinsons to the Jupiter 2, the white shoes of the stage hands pushing the creatures occasionally come into shot. * Priplanus, which first appears in this episode, has been redesigned from the planet seen in the original pilot shot. Possibly this is to avoid any mistaking the world with Mars as occurred in 'No Place to Hide', although a reference to this was left in a later pilot scene edited into 'The Hungry Sea'. * A terrible piece of science is used in this episode: the comet near the Jupiter 2 is supposedly extremely hot- when in fact comets are made of ice! * A strange error involves the Bubble Creatures from this episode. In the second series clip-show episode 'Prisoners of Space', the judge is one of the species yet has no trouble speaking english. Of course, those in this episode cannot communicate except by electrical sparks. This can be passed off as a writer's fault- or a deliberate gaff in order to shock Dr Smith- but it still makes little sense either way. Links and references Cast *Guy Williams as John Robinson *June Lockhart as Maureen Robinson *Mark Goddard as Major Don West *Marta Kristen as Judy Robinson *Angela Cartwright as Penny Robinson *Billy Mumy as Will Robinson *Jonathan Harris as Doctor Smith *Bob May as the Robot Links * The Reluctant Stowaway on Fancast Category:Lost in Space episodes